Three enterprising Arizona State University students capitalize on the food truck craze by devising a plan to convert old trucks into modern-day bookmobiles for low-income schools and communities lacking basic library resources. They hatched the idea as part of their Changemaking in Education course co-taught by ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and Teach For America.

Librarians and others who serve their communities are to be commended, especially when they go above and beyond their duties as Bonner did. But there’s also something extraordinary about the existence of libraries themselves—more than 120,000 of them in the U.S. to be exact, according to the American Library Association. They’re free and welcoming and offer a safe, calming, communal space to any who enter. But it’s more than that. They’re not just empty rooms with table and chairs and white walls. They’re filled with books, stacks of them so you can walk among and between volumes, touch their spines and feel their words emanating from across the seas and across time and sometimes just across town. Books teach us to be patient in a fast-paced, quick-fix world. They remind us that others have insights worth paying attention to, that there is beauty in our shared language, that in our struggles we are often not alone. They help us heal.

Doug Mirams's insight:

I pulled that quote out of the article and highlighted it here because I believe it speaks so clearly to understated elegance and reason for public libraries.

In the 12th annual Knight News Challenge, organizers asked this question: “How might we leverage libraries as a platform to build more knowledgeable communities?” Twenty-two winners answered that challenge, and their names were announced January 30 at the 2015 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Chicago.

ALA President Courtney L. Young opened the session, drawing a parallel between the mission of the Knight Foundation and ALA, both of which, she said, believe in the democratizing effect of keeping the public informed and engaged.

This year’s News Challenge received 680 submissions, which were narrowed down to 41 semifinalists. In the end, 22 grant recipients—14 prototypes projects and eight larger projects—will share $3 million to launch their programs.

It is not often that I highlight an entire website devoted to moving libraries towards their social and community potential (maybe the Library As Incubator Project was the last time) so I am happy to share this site Sustainable Library Projects and encourage anyone interested in this topic to add it to their feedly or favourite RSS reader. I am sure that I will be featuriing projects from this site in the future. Enjoy.

"Libraries on Long Island are also expanding their mission. "They've reinvented themselves," said Anne Marie Tognella, who works in programming and public relations at the Sachem Public Library in Holbrook."

Doug Mirams's insight:

While about the changing environment for bookstores, half way through this article shifts its focus to the public libraries. Sachem Public Library has expanding weekly programming, "hosts 20 to 30 events, which can include French lessons, Mah-jongg games, toning and sculpting classes, movies and concerts and more. The library has even taken an interest in champion accessibility to its programming, using bus tours to regional events.

Perhaps especially in rural communities, libraries provide key points of connection with the broader world, serving as windows on faraway places, other cultures, and diverse perspectives. But libraries can also help deepen our ties to the places we live, discover new things about our own backyard, and build connections in our own communities. For people living and working in rural areas, the Rural Information Center (RIC) offers one way to connect with world-class expertise on issues and opportu

Doug Mirams's insight:

Great post about how the Rual Information Center is assisting rural libraries into reaching their social library potential; whether through Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grants to building a community of experts with the bilingual English/Spanish Agicultural Thesaurus and Glossary to webinars sponsored by Webjunction.

According to Library Director Kristen Sorth, the goal of the program is to encourage new parents to start regularly reading to their kids as early as possible. Sorth said hearing their parents read helps babies develop language skills that will help them succeed later on in school.

"For some people they may feel kind of silly reading to an infant, it's an itty bitty baby, but it's important to understand how great that it is in terms of a child's development to start that early," she said.

Doug Mirams's insight:

As a reflection of St. Louis County Library's strategic plan to encourage the joy of reading and literacy to children before they start kindergarten, which also includes a kindergarten reading readiness program and the Family Literacy Involvement Program.

Should CEOs have a personal brand and does this risk deflecting attention from the cause they are supporting?

Doug Mirams's insight:

The answer to that question would be yes, since, "In rather the same way as the Pope represents the Catholic brand [...]" Although this article is aimed at non-profits/charities, there is relevant information here for CEOs/Chief Librarians in that what they say online with their own personal brand (even if they don't use Social Media like Facebook and LinkedIn) must align with their libraries voice.

Tips like: Authenticity ("consistently live the personal values you espouse"); Focus ("If you work in charity, the charity you represent is your focus -- mention it at every opportunity"); Feedback ("It can be as simple as asking them, what you could do better. This is not the sign of weakness, rather, it's the opposite"); and, Transparency ("If there's a storm, transparency is your port").

"Co-working spaces are becoming the most advantageous and suitable solutions for a work environment that is fast becoming more dynamic and flexible. But which are the rules that shape a perfect shared office and allow the creation of a synergetic community?"

Doug Mirams's insight:

There is alot of inspiration for new public library layout in this article about coworking spaces. "Environments are connected to each other using divisions enabling integration, separation, and size changes in multiple combinations so that people can develop a wide range of activities" says architect Odart Graterol of The Hub Caracas; could there be a better description of a modern public library?

Our friends at Library as Incubator Project have a post on the upcoming SPINE Festival: Libraries out Loud happening in London (UK) area libraries the first ten days of March. This festival celebrates arts and literature in libraries features such great sounding events as Half Moon Theatre's Pop-up Flashback, World Book Day Chatterbooks Specials (inspired by Alice in Wonderland), Spine Slam Poetry Workshop for teens, among others. If you are in London, check it out let us me know @dmirams what you thought of it.

The word "library" used to conjure an image of a big brick building full of books where you had to be quiet all the time, but thanks to the internet, it's now a whole lot less specific. Take, for example, the Little Free Libraries that are sp…

Doug Mirams's insight:

Great profile on how that simple word "library" we all know and love has evolved and improved and expanded beyond its Carnegie-bonds out into our and with our communities.

A recent Huffington Post article tells of a Facebook experiment that spawned over 150 community-generated ideas on the future of Miami's libraries. Rebecca Fishman Lipsey and Francine Madera, in 100 Great Ideas for the Future of Libraries -- A New Paradigm for Civic Engagement, share how they launched the 10-day experiment after exploring how to better draw communities - the end-users - into the discussion.

Doug Mirams's insight:

Great summary of recent posts and discussions around the socially responsive library, featuring articles from the Huffington Post, 100 Great Ideas, ALA Midwinter's focus on Community Engagement and Webjunction themselves.

Meet the nation's first full-time library social worker. Instead of trying to keep homeless residents from taking shelter in the urban haven of public libraries, San Francisco has adopted a new approach: employing a trained professional to address the needs of these visitors. The NewsHour’s Cat Wise reports. Continue reading →

Doug Mirams's insight:

Subtitled: "From nurses to social works, see how public libraries are serving the homeless".

Coffee Shop Freelancers is trying to break down communication barriers for people to obtain more work

Doug Mirams's insight:

Inspiration from Coffee Shop Freelancers for public/academic librarians: let's get out from behind our desks and make ourselves available in the stacks, at the public tables, or in the public spaces of our communities. And how better to show people who were are than to take a laptop decal from Coffee Shop Freelancers and display our "embedded librarian" skills for all the world to see. Throw in a LibraryBoxen and you've got a Party!

The electrical fire that destroyed the interior of the Phoenicia Library was still smoldering on that March morning in 2011, when Judith Singer, then president of the library board, got on the phon...

Doug Mirams's insight:

NY library reopens after devastating fire four years ago with focus upon community space, access to technology (including power) and “We’re the first American library built to passive house standards,” said library director Elizabeth Potter..

Elizabeth Mujawamaliya Johnson noted that “Over the next few years we are commiting to putting a mini-library in every Youth Friendly Center in the country; we believe that with education, Rwanda’s young people will continue to educate themselves and others, helping to create and sustain peace in Rwanda and in the world. Our core values are compassion, accountability, respect, and empowerment.”

Doug Mirams's insight:

The Grace Rwanda Society (founded by Rwandans living in Canada) has pledged to place libraries in twenty-one "youth friendly centres" through the country as a way to encourage reading. "The more we read, the more ideas and concepts come to mind. No wonder, then, that innovations usually originate from developed countries," writes the post's author.

REX has shared with us their competition proposal for Calgary’s New Central Library (NCL). Though Snøhetta and DIALOG ultimately won the competition,

Doug Mirams's insight:

REX's failed entry for Calgary's new Downtown Central Library envisions a future library built around clusters of activities and makes the building itself re-enforce the idea of librarians as curators. Would love to hear what other's think? Please share.

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